Hideki Yukawa
Name in native script: 湯川秀樹
1907–1981, Tokyo, Japan, Kyoto, Japan
Japanese theoretical physicist who predicted the meson mediating the nuclear force; he received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics, the first Japanese Nobel laureate.
Yukawa was born in Tokyo and grew up in Kyoto, where his father was a professor of geography. He graduated from Kyoto Imperial University in 1929, then lectured at Osaka Imperial University, where he developed his theory of nuclear forces in 1934–1935. In 1939 he returned to Kyoto as professor.
His theory predicted a heavy intermediate particle — later the pion — mediating the attraction between nucleons. From 1948 to 1953 he was visiting professor at Columbia University and then at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, before returning to Kyoto to direct the Research Institute for Fundamental Physics (YITP) that bears his name.
Nobel-winning work
In 1934–1935, Yukawa formulated a theory of nuclear forces: protons and neutrons inside the nucleus attract one another by exchanging a massive quantum — he called it the U-quantum, later 'meson' — much as the photon carries the electromagnetic force. The short range of the nuclear force required the mediating particle to weigh about 200 electron masses.
The prediction appeared in the Proceedings of the Physico-Mathematical Society of Japan in 1935 and was vindicated in 1947 when Powell's group discovered the pion in cosmic rays using photographic emulsions. Yukawa received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics 'for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces' — the first Japanese Nobel laureate.
Workplaces: Osaka Imperial University, Kyoto Imperial University, Columbia University
Japan